Announcements

Congratulations! Two history professors won graduate teaching awards on December 6, 2016. Professor Jane Landers, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professors of History won the Graduate Mentoring Award. Professor Bill Caferro, also Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History won the Graduate Teaching Award. These awards were presented by Dean Benton and Senior Associate Dean Stassun. (see the first slide above). Link to announcement here.

A project directed by Jane Landers, the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of History, to preserve endangered African and Afro-descended slave records has been awarded an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Digital Extension Grant. See article here.

Thomas A. Schwartz presents the tenth annual Schwan Lecture, "The Diplomacy of Henry Kissinger: Realist, Idealist, or Politician?," presented by the Politics and Government Department at North Park University, Chicago, March 31, 2016.

Ari Joskowicz has been awarded an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) 2016 Fellowship for his project Jews and Roma in the Shadow of Genocide.

The Vanderbilt Historical Review released its first issue (Spring 2016) on January 12. It has articles written by students from Vanderbilt, Boston College, University of Chicago, University of Edinburgh, Stanford University, Yale University and University of Virginia. "My colleagues and I have been deeply impressed by the analytic rigor and consistently high writing standards evident in all the articles," said Joel Harrington, Centennial Professor of History and chair of the department at Vanderbilt University. "We are also very proud of Robert and his editorial team for producing such a high quality scholarly publication." See also the second issue (Summer 2016) at the link below.Link to article in MyVULink to journalLink to VHR home page

Paul Kramer has received an NEH fellowship for the 2016-17 academic year.

History at Vanderbilt

History has been an integral part of the undergraduate and graduate curriculum at Vanderbilt since the University was founded, in 1873. The first undergraduate students of the discipline immersed themselves in subjects as various as the Roman Empire, English constitutional history, the history of religion (including Islam), political economy, and contemporary American politics. Graduate study came early—in the 1880s—to Vanderbilt. Taught in weekly seminars, a new instructional form, students were expected to master the standard texts—in ancient history and in legal history, for example—while the more advanced among them engaged in innovative research on such issues as the Civil War, local government in the South and Southwest, and the tariff, Henry George and socialism. Vanderbilt’s first PhD in history was awarded in 1899, one of only three awarded in the South before 1900.

Today, the Department of History’s 42 full-time faculty members offer courses that span the globe—from Africa and Asia to Europe, Latin America and the United States—and that introduce students to a range of historical questions and methodologies. The undergraduate program attracts over 150 majors, and the graduate program annually enrolls about 10 students in a variety of fields. Department faculty are at once devoted and skilled teachers on the one hand and innovative and accomplished researchers and writers of history on the other.